Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution on MySpace: The Review

On Wednesday, August 22^nd, MySpace and nowwhat.com got together and did something new for MySpace fans. At the nowwhat.com MySpace page, they showed six hours of Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour. The Projekt Revolution tour is a national music tour, started by, and headlining, the band Linkin Park. The six hour Projekt Revolution streaming broadcast featured the six bands from the main stage: Julien-K, Placebo, HIM, Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance, and, of course, Linkin Park.

I had only caught bits and pieces of Julien-K and Placebo, but pretty much saw what I expected. A couple of young, eager, bands, still trying to really find themselves artistically. I unfortunately, missed HIM, which is a band I do enjoy. Early opinions were that they played pretty well. Taking Back Sunday took the stage, and if you like them, you liked the show. I've never been a big fan, since they don't have a unique sound or view.

But the true crowd pleasers of the day were, obviously, My Chemical Romance. Though not a fan of their older work, I am a fan of their newest album, The Black Parade, so I was anxious to see what kind of a show they actually put on. .. And was surprised. Pleasantly surprised, actually. The energy and emotion Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance, puts into every syllable he sings, is unbelievable. Gerard Way actually attacked another band member and knocked him over as he was moshing around the stage! As far as the performance of the band as a whole, I would give them all high marks. As far as the streaming video of My Chemical Romance's performance, my marks are considerably lower. Gerard Way's vocals were too low to actually be heard over the rest of the band, but this could be due to the sound engineering at the actual venue. This was extremely annoying to those of us who don't know many My Chemical Romance songs, but were looking to expand our exposure to the band. The other minus for this section of the show, came towards the end of the My Chemical Romance set. After Gerard Way announces they have three songs left, the video goes black! This could be due to increased users signing on, but shouldn't this have been anticipated? My Chemical Romance is a band that can lead their fans like an army, so of course they would come in droves to see their leaders performing for them. It's the long time fans that really got hit by this streaming black out, since it happened during the performance of their first major hit, Helena.

Finally, what all the fans have been waiting for, Linkin Park takes the stage. I've been a Linkin Park fan for many years, and have only gotten to see them once, which was before they even hit it big. So being able to see them perform now that they are multi-platinum musicians, was exciting. I can safely say, I was not let down. The performance was above what I expected; with slowed down versions of their old hits (like a piano version of Pushing Me Away), and over the top piano and keyboard performances through-out. I will admit, though, this was expected. You don't get were Linkin park is by not giving the fan's what they really want. Streaming video wise, there were only a few minor glitches and skipping, but nothing as bad as the My Chemical Romance and Helena black-out. Chester Bennington, lead vocalist of Linkin Park, received great cheers and accolades when he thanked the Marines and Armed Forces who fight for use 'even when they don't have to'.

Throughout the streaming video of this Projekt Revolution show, there were hosts, headed by Matt Pinfield, chatting with the bands and thanking everybody for watching, of course. The highlights of the between-band entertainment, was the focus on the Revolution Stage bands, which is the second stage set-up at Projekt Revolution. These focus sections included band interviews and one or two song clips from the bands. The highlight of these Revolution Stage performances, was a band by the name of Mindless Self Indulgence. This band epitomizes the reason for these up-and-coming stages, by bringing a unique mix of hip-hop, electronic, and rock, to a stage presence of just not caring. This mix makes them a band to watch, even though they have been around as long as Linkin Park. Other time wasters between bands included a comment scroller, much like the comment scroller on MTV's TRL show. Most of the comments consisted of the 'LP Rox!' and variety a screaming which band is the best. Considering the average age of 15 or so, this is totally to be expected. A good concept that just didn't work out well this time around was the Nokia corporate tie-in. Fans were given a new Nokia camera phone, to use and take video of their day at Projekt Revolution, but most of these camera shows were not of much more than the ground or really shaky shots of anything else.

When all is said and done, this idea was just a great one. Projekt Revolution was the perfect tour to showcase on. The streaming video was in a pretty decent working order, minus a glitch here and there. The band performances were dead-on. And the viewer comments told the same story. I really enjoyed this MySpace concert, and look forward to many more of them, hopefully showcasing a broad variety of talent, and not just the young interests.